The Minor Fall and the Major Lift
by localizy
Summary: No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't save her. Submission for the CBPC for November.


**Disclaimer: I don't own, don't sue.**

**Author Notes: **I am a sporadic _Bones_ watcher, which is wrong I know, but I try to catch it when I can. I read the fiction and keep up with the summaries so I know what is going on. I saw this challenge, the Cullen Bull-Pen Challenge, one day while seeing if there is anything new to read and this idea just came to me. It is different then anything I have written before because there is no dialogue. I hope it meets the guidelines. Please review and let me know what you think; good, bad, or otherwise. This was partially inspired by Jeff Buckley's _Hallelujah, _listen to the song while reading it, I think it adds a little something.

**The Minor Fall and the Major Lift**

He struggled to get out of his bonds. The Grave Digger had him strapped to a chair in front of a dozen live feed monitors, forcing him to watch her being chased by the killer. Blood was dripping down from his wrists as the rope began cutting into his flesh. The video was coming from a little camera attached to the Grave Digger's shirt as well as cameras tracking movement in the sewers that she was being chased in. The Grave Digger had been chasing her for nearly an hour and he just kept coming. He could see the exhaustion in her features, he could see her labored breathing, but he knew she wouldn't stop. She would keep going until she got the upper hand, stopped the killer, and found him.

For what felt like the 500th time in the last two hours he cursed himself for not telling Cullen what he suspected, instead he went to talk to that damn author himself. He told no one but her and she insisted on coming with. He wished he had thought it through, that he had been more aware, that he would have realized sooner that the reporter and author were in cahoots. If he had figured it out before they walked into that house, they wouldn't have been caught off guard and they wouldn't be in the situation they were in now. He watched as she ran down a particularly slimy tunnel, finally getting far enough away that she didn't need to sprint as quickly. His relief was short-lived as he watched her slip and fall, hitting her head on the ground. He started to scream through the gag when he saw she wasn't getting up. He began to struggle more, lifting the chair off the ground in his desperation to save his partner, as the Grave Digger slowly began making his way towards the non-moving prey. He could see that she was just starting to come to when the Grave Digger came within ten feet of her. He froze as the sadistic killer smiled up at the camera bolted on the wall of the sewer and pressed a button on the shirt cam, turning off all the cameras the captive man was watching. As the reporter returned tazor in hand, all he could hear was an ear-splitting, blood-curling scream. He didn't know who it came from; her, screaming in pain as the Grave Digger finished what he attempted to do a month ago, or himself, coming from the sheer agony of not being able to save her.

* * *

The blood curling scream was coming from the living room of her apartment. Brennan had been sleeping, finally allowing her mind and body to rest, knowing that the Grave Digger, both of them, were finally in jail. She and Booth decided to go to Wong Fu's to celebrate and Booth had drank a bit too much. Brennan, not wanted Booth to drive, made him come back to her place to sleep it off. He was sound asleep within seconds of reaching the couch. She followed him to dreamland shortly after and was awoken by the screaming in the living room. They were heart-wrenching screams that seemed to be coming from his soul. As she rushed to the room, she could see the anguish he was in. He was tossing and turning on the couch, nearly falling to the floor, tears were streaming down his cheeks and it took all her self control not to burst into tears at the sight of it. She kneeled next to him and attempted to wake him up, softly calling his name and shaking his shoulder.

As suddenly as they started the screams stopped and Booth opened his eyes, sitting up so quickly that Brennan jumped back, not knowing what caused the screaming. Booth looked around him and took in the sight of Brennan's apartment as the antics of the night before came back to him. The celebration of catching the Grave Digger, his overzealous drinking while attempting to bury thoughts of what could have happened, Bones taking him back to her place so he could sober up and not choke on his own vomit. He rubbed his hands over his face in an attempt to remove the images of Bones being tortured. He turned his head when he heard her softly call his name, nothing but concern and fear for him in her voice.

She saw the panicked and tortured look on Booth's face and went to sit next to him. As soon as she touched his arm, he pulled her close, so close that a piece of paper wouldn't fit between them. Brennan held him tight as sobs racked his body, the only words escaping him was that he tried but he couldn't get out, he couldn't save her. Tears sprang to her eyes as she kissed his forehead and kept repeating that she was there, she was alive, and he did save her. Eventually he calmed down and contented himself with just holding tightly to his Bones. As he was just starting to drift off, he felt Brennan move away from him. He was about to protest, fearing that the nightmares would come back if he didn't hold onto her, when Brennan took his hand and led him to her bedroom. They fell asleep together, wrapped in a cocoon of blankets and safety, taking comfort in the fact that no matter what happened they would save each other, even if it was from a dream.

**AN: So there it is my first _Bones _fic. I enjoyed writing it and hope you enjoy reading it. Just for posterity and so you can see if you think I followed the guidelines, here are the rules.**

**The challenge is: "Action!" - An action or sequence. It can be a chase sequence, a bar fight, or whatever you can come up with, but the story should focus on the characters being in some kind of motion.**


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